Now that we've covered Java's RMI, let's look at another way to distribute objects. Like RMI, CORBA lets you write client code that accesses remote objects. However, there are some significant technical differences as we will detail on the next page.
The biggest difference though is that, unlike RMI, CORBA is not a part of Java itself. Instead, an industry consortium known as the Object Management Group invented CORBA. The OMG itself does not write code; instead, the consortium debates and publishes specifications. Then, vendors implement the specifications to produce products known as Object Request Brokers (ORBs). Some of the major ORB vendors include IBM, Iona, and Inprise (formerly known as Borland, which purchased the Visigenics ORB company). But the most exciting ORB news for Java developers is that the JDK version 1.2 includes an ORB, so you can write Java CORBA code without having to license any other software. We will use the JDK 1.2 ORB as our example ORB in this course.